license

tags

Tags

about

Douglas ChayBaltimore, Maryland

Influences include Violent Femmes, the Velvet Underground & Talking Heads, but the music of his forebears is filtered
through his own distinctive world view & sonic approach, resulting in a creation uniquely his own. Simple without being simplistic, accessible without being sycophantic, & clever without feeling smug, he achieves a compelling balance between the new & the familiar. - Scott Hollis...more

contact / help

There's a big red ant at the foot of my bed
If I go to sleep it'll crawl into my head
There's a giant roach playing in the kitchen
It's spreading disease and leaving droppings around
I tried those sprays I even fumigated
But all I do just seems to complicate it
Emerging from cracks with their smiling mugs
I don't like bugs
There's a black hairy spider living under my sink
If I get naked it'll bite into my pink
There's some kind of crustacean there behind the fridge
It's brothers and sisters are probably living upstairs
Roach motels, electrocuting shells
I just want to send those fuckers to hell
Laying their eggs that hatch in my water jug
I don't like bugs
They hurt you, they harm you, in the dark they alarm you
When you come home at night they're waiting in the moonlight
They know when you're sleeping they know when you're awake
So they can run to the counter and chow down on your cake
Well I know some people keep their lousy bugs as pets
But I haven't met a sane person who's done that yet
There's a wasp on my cheek while I'm taking a nap
Injecting its poison before I can slap
There's a gangrenous slug floating in my bath
It's sucking my blood and then spitting it back
I don't mean to be mean I know they're all creatures of God
But I still wish they'd perish in one big fat stinking blob
They can live outside but not in my rug
I don't like bugs
Every time I think of you I think of you and your bugs
When you die they'll eat you up
They hurt you they harm you they all gang up on you
Dropping in unexpected with hair follicles erected
They're on your dishes your toothbrush, your toilet, your skink
Your telephone your ice cream cone, your fountain pen ink
Well I know some people keep their lousy bugs as pets
But I haven't met a sane person who's done that yet
There's a big red ant at the foot of my bed
If I go to sleep it'll crawl into my head
There's a giant roach playing in the kitchen
It's spreading disease and leaving droppings around
I tried those sprays I even fumigated
But all I do just seems to complicate it
Emerging from cracks with their smiling mugs
I don't like bugs

Once I looked into a glassy eye's hypnotic gaze
Gave to me a melody I can't begin to play
Once I dropped a sea shell in a wishing well of coins
Authorities, they said to me, "You're living far too recklessly"
1 don't know why they bother me and my sister
Once I woke to ﬁnd my house was broken into two
Called the local seamstress, but there's nothing she can do
Once I had some money so I bought myself a toy
Receptionists, they guarantee it's far too intricate for me
I don't know why they bother me and my sister ...my sister Dough
She said that I ground my face in the sandy beaches of Northern Ireland
But you know I don't remember
Not a word of what she said would stay in my head
Once I listened to a hollow voice echo my name
Told me in a twisted tongue that shattered into ﬂames
Once I knew a lady who had books she couldn't keep
Security found out that she was giving secrets far too free
I don't know why they bother me and my sister
She's going to write to me she's going to make me see
What I feel but what I cannot understand
She's going to talk to me I wonder what they're going to do to me
When they ﬁnd out I've been hiding all their plans
They're going to torture me they're going to make me bleed
They'll shine the bright white light into my eyes
And when all my strength is gone I think I'll ﬁnd it hard to carry on
I'll soar away just like a butterﬂy
Once I had an enemy we both did wonder why
I found we became auite friendly rehearsing for to die

I don't know how I know I'll see you there
I don't know why I feel I'm everywhere
I don't know how I know you're there
To those of you who Imow: hello hello
I'm ﬂoating down an endless stream of fear
While love surrounds I think it's somewhere
I don't know how I feel it here
To those of you who know: hello hello
All I know is what you tell me
All I hear is what you say
Life is only what you make it
I never listened anyway
Hello hello, hello hello
An endless time of some tranquility
Will not arrive if you don't let it be
Another height for you and me to see
Reﬂecting light will surely set us free
Another height for you and me
To those of you who know: hello hello

My head feels full and what I hear
Sounds quite absurd
And parts here are rather darkened
That is I think they can't be seen
And others are quite light
But it doesn't matter because tomorrow
I'll have come 'round
And I'll be the one you think you know
Or what I seem to be
And I'll say "thanks" and you'll say "please"
And we'11 play along just ﬁne
But you don't know me when I'm alone
How could you I guess you could
I don't feel sick and yet I don't feel well
I don't feel much at all
And colors blur and points they curve
And retain their shape through it all
But you know I don't know why
I don't think I feel quite right
It's just I don't feel the way I usually do

Martha is a friend of mine, she eats food all the time
She knows your mother and tells her things about you
And her friend Dave lies dead on the beach
He never learned how to teach
He wanted a Ph.D. but he found a rifle
I'm buying some ugly flowers
For my dead friends
I'm spitting from the top of a tower
On my dead friends
My dead friends with their heads in their hands
They eat from a can my dead friends
My dead friends they live in a house
Somewhere in the deep south
My dead friends
Stan is a casual acquaintance he's 43 with a good job
But he's already washed up cause he always
talks as if he's already dead
Ain't that sad, ain't that a shame
But there's no one around who you can lay the blame
There's nothing to eat in the kitchen and I'm still hungry
I'm wasting away the afternoon mourning over
My dead friends
I'm baking a cake with some white enriched flour for
My dead friends
My dead friends they all live in a van
They eat with their hands
My dead friends they're too busy to talk
And when they see you they walk
My dead friends they grow their pot in a pan
They smell like Pierre Cardin
My dead friends as a matter of fact
All their clothes are jet black
My dead friends

The other night about ten o'clock
Outside the grocery store parking lot
A friend accosted who held onto her purse
Was next found riding in the back of a hearse
It could have been me
A guy was talking just the other day
Bout how he got to be that way
He was doing thirty, thought that's doing alright
But some folks were drinking and they missed the red light
It could have been me
Everyone is hoping that they've taken some vaccine
That keeps themselves immune
The news all seems so distant from the subway ofﬁce grind
But give yourself some time
I heard on the news about the airline ﬂight
When the hijackers freaked with their guns eind their knives
They wanted to go to some strange part of Spain
But instead sucked all the people through a hole in the plane
Everyone is thinking things don*t work that way for them
Until they're one in ten
Things can be quite scary when you're out there on your own
So alone
A guy of eighteen was sent off to ﬁght
In a war he didn't even think was right
His family got no letters, got no news but for lies
And they're still there waiting for the news that he died
It could have been me
A blue young girl went out for a date
The end of which she was brutally raped
A guy was working on the edge of his land
When the white hooded ﬁgoires came and cut off his hands
A man was lying there asleep in his bed
When a robber put a bullet through the back of his head
A ﬁsherman ﬁshing on the wrong part of town
Where the people put him under and they cheered as he drowned
Some friends protesting for to save all the trees
When the cops came along and kicked out all of their teeth
A guy got angry so he threw them some mud
And was found ﬁve minutes later covered in his own blood
It could have been me, the thought frightens me

I love vegetables, I love the way
They're multicolored, like no other, makes my day
I love coffee beans and chromosome genes
I'd like some cream and sugar in my DNA
I love vegetables
I love peach incense and California mints
I love to feel the paintbrush on the canvas gray
I love shooting stars and totaled cars
I love to feel the wind a-tearing 'cross my face
I love vegetables
I know a wall, it's rather obscene
If you get there soon, you'll see what I mean
I know a girl, she lives on the hill
She's a deal of money, never made a will
I love dollar bills, unwritten wills
I love a chilly evening, darkness cold and wet
I love leather's smell and water wells
I love to burn a hole in things with cigarettes
I love vegetables
The time has now come
To build our big garden
The brine surely ﬂows
And our minds surely know
I love oil paints and murdered saints
I love to sit and watch TV while ﬁres ﬂame
I love planets, stars, Saturn and Mars
I love to watch a speech and see a tongue go lame
I love vegetables

Pickle me an ancient tongue I climb upon its smoldering rung
And every step I further take is one more chance I won't awaken
Dr. Jenning—I think I need some help
Will you see me—maybe you can help
Can you tell me—what's that you say to me?
Dr. Jenning aahh—
Waiting for a blackened sea to ope its mouth and swallow me
Watch the water turn to blood it tastes like wine is that enough?
Dr. Jenning—I'm waiting in your room
Where could you be—can you get here soon?
When I think of—all the things you've done
Dr. Jenning aah—
I see her ﬁll those needles full of things so kind
I put my hands in my head trying to ﬁnd my mind
I don't know who to talk to things can be so weird
My body's aching won't you let me out of here?
The lobsters snap their heavy claws entangled in a seaweed gauze
Disembodied from their heads they writhe together in sea beds
Walking through a distant sphere where shadows rise and disappear
Throbbing red goes forth and back my ﬁngers severed and hair hacked

God save you if you're born a girl
Nothing you can do 'cause they'll all do it to you
God save you if you're born in America
You're working for the Reagans or you're working in Peru
God save you if you're born a black
Society won't want you and they'll try to send you back
God save you if you're born a homosexual
They have a separate table for the ladies and the fags
God save us 'cause we're living in a nuclear world
Save us 'cause we're giving all we have to the gov.
Save us, can you tell if you're a boy or a girl
Save us 'cause we're living in a nuclear
God save you if you're overweight
You're sticking to your diet but you don't know what you ate
God save you from the "Church of God"
They'll tell you what you want to hear and then they'll tell you
their rate
God save you if you can't conform
You'll see they'll go reform you if you're straying from the norm
God save you if you're handicapped
They'll say you're not a real person and that's not where it's at
God save us cause we're living in a nuclear world
Save us 'cause we can't afford to pay off our bills
Save us 'cause I think we're all incurably ill
Save us 'cause we're living in a nuclear world
Nuclear ba"bies bouncing off the wall
Weaned on their bottles with nylon nipples
Disposable family in the family car
Going away for a vacation
On a slippery Vaseline Beach
It's just a brown paper bag, take-out order, toilet paper
Rubber, polyethylene, microwave, mucous membrane
Felt tip, ballpoint, aerosol, sanitary napkin, two for one
Nuclear world
God save you if you can't conceive
They're mixing you a baby in a laboratory
God save you if you're getting old
They'll stick you in an institution and watch your body go cold
God save yau if you're born at all
You kaow you're asking for some trouble if you crawl out the womb
God save you on your dying day
They'll pickle up your body and stick you in your tomb

Sunday evening, I must be leaving
For a place where I don't want to be
No, I can't stay, I have to go far away
But I wish you'd come there with me
'Cause this is my last Sunday evening
This is my last Sunday night
This is ray last Monday morning
I have to leave to catch my ﬂight
This is my last throat contraction
This is my last time tonight
This is the last time I'll see you
Send me a postcard if you like
Monday morning will soon be dawning
And I won't care what Tuesday brings
I'll watch the steam rise from my creamed coffee
Fatty bacon with doughnut rings
Sunday night
It don't feel right
I'm not gonna feel you here
And you know I won't know you're near
And I wish I could live this evening
For a few years, an hour more
But it's midnight, I hope you're feeling alright
I won't see you or know where you are

Ladies on the street, you're calling it nighttime
You're on the street but it's all you can do
Walking to your car, you know it don't feel right
You have your money but you don't have your shoes
Looking for a job, you know you won't find one
All the employers have their eye out for you
Sleeping in a bush, it's softer than sidewalks
But either way you're waking up in the nude
You gotta, you gotta leave it there
You gotta leave your cares in your baggies
You got love, you got love there somewhere
You gotta leave your cares
With the governmental blues, elevator muse
Doorman at the railway station

Wake me up tonight don't let me out of sight
Take my mirrors down I want to touch your hair
Tourmaline I'd like to see you when I do so
Hey ho, this time for me
Think of me tonight and think of something kind
Look up at the sky you'll be before my eyes
Tourmaline this time tomorrow I'll be
Click, tick tock, this time you'll see
Oh, I hear the rain
Falling down again
Make me feel alright and tell me only lies
Take me to the cliff and put me on the rocks
Tourmaline I'd like to be there when you need me
Whoopee, this time for me
Oh, I hear the rain
Falling down again

People used to tell me "I don't like the way your hair
Falls down to your shoulders you're not getting older
There's no room for you there"
People used to ask me "Why can't you be one of us?
You're always alone in what you call your home
We really think you missed the bus!"
People used to judge me a court and jury of law
We'll pass a sentence and ask for your repentance
And make you stand against the wall
Give me what I need and don't try to make ms bleed
I'm not your repressor don't try to feed me lessons
Of your righteous morality
Leave my thoughts alone and stop invading my phone
I won't be a martyr fcr established institutions
(That) try to creep into your heme
All I need all I need
All I need is what I need
People used to tell me while talking on the telephone
What I didn't want to hear conﬁrming all my fears
Ended saying "Can't you leave me alone?"
People used to write me letters I would throw in the trash
The envelope would say I might have already won today
A million dollars in cash (how 'bout that!)
People used to make me into sanething that I never was
That they wanted me to be and they tried to convince me
That that was the way I was (but no sir)
Give me what I need and don't try to make me bleed
I'm not your repressor don't try to feed me lessons
Of your righteous morality
Leave my thoughts alone and stop invading my phone
I won't be a martyr for established institutions
(That) try to creep into your home
All I need all I need
All I need is what I need

The eyes of sight can't see him coming down
The prison walls that hear no sound
He wants to get back to his life
And drink some tea and see his wife
He ran from Dover to Beltane
Got under cover in the rain
He got lost somewhere 'round route thirty-ﬁve
He was so tired, thought he'd hide
And get a little bit of sleep
Next to the horses and the sheep
He wants to get back to his life
And see the kids and fuck the wife
He wandered in a waterfront cafe
And ordered ﬁsh and chips to stay
He'11 never go away he'll never ever go away
His wife was watching television
And saw the six o'clock news had come on
An escaped convict had been shot
She wasn't hoping he was not
He wants to get back to his life
And eat some food and see his wife